


Grublings

by teaandcharcoal



Series: Trans!Dave [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Kidfic, M/M, Multi, What Have I Done, because i am weak, i blame the people who wanted an epilogue for in season, nonbinary grubs, parenting, so throwing around a lot of singular theys, trans!Dave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-15 03:51:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10549600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaandcharcoal/pseuds/teaandcharcoal
Summary: I needed more baby troll fluff in my life. This is all going to be very saccharine.Ties into the trans!dave series, but as long as you're willing to roll with the idea of John, Dave, and Karkat raising three grubs it'll be fine.





	1. First Molt

**Author's Note:**

> I was really bored in class and accidentally wrote like 2/3 of this in a notebook.
> 
> I really enjoy writing grub train of thought. It's a fun stylistic switch.

It's dark for a long time, and then you hear his footsteps. It must be Papa, because he's the one that comes when it's dark. He pauses outside the door. You huddle deeper into the ham-ock, pull the soft more over you. Do not come in. Please do not come in.

Light happens. The others startle awake. You can barely see them from where you hide. Kaisey wiggles their way out of the comfy warm nest pile to wait by the door. Devvan doesn't move, but turns their head to watch. You do not move. You hide.

Papa opens the door and says, "Hey guys, how's it going?" He has a pot and a new jug of water.

The other grubs chirp and Kaisey clings to his leg. The thing in the pot smells sweet. Your belly is empty. You want food. You do not move. You hide.

"Owt-meal today," Papa says. "We're out of eggs. Human dad's going to the store later, so you'll get some tomorrow. Good sh- stuff." He kneels beside the dishes and scoops whitish mush into them.

The others run over. They bury their faces in the mush, come away with food clinging to their cheeks. You are hungry. It smells sweet. You do not move. You hide.

"Adrian?" He calls. He sounds scared, looks scared. "Adrian!" He looks all around.

But you are more scared. You are soft and he is big. He has been good, gives you food, preens you. But you are still soft and he is still big. And he knows you are hiding nearby. How does he know? The others broke your old shell, hid the bits.

This is why you thought them giving you “names” was bad. They know you are supposed to be down there and that you are not. But he cannot find you because you are the best at hiding. …You hope.

Papa digs through the comfy warm nest pile. He finds what was your leg and loses the red in his face. "Oh my god," he gasps. "Oh god, oh god, oh god!"

He looks under things, behind things, tears them apart. The others realize he is searching for you. They chirp, climb on him, tug his clothes. Devvan drops to the ground and cries, which usually get all the dads’ attention. They are good sibs, try to keep you safe. You do not move. You hide. Then he turns, looks up at the ham-ok. No. Please no…

He climbs on the chair. Lifts the warm-soft you were hiding under. You do not move. Perhaps if you are very, very still he won't see you. The ham-ok is red and you are red.

"Oh thank you, Gee-sus, God." He sighs, looks at you and smiles.

He does not attack you, does not hurt you. He does not even touch your soft body. He strokes your head and covers you again. You cannot see now; the warm-soft is in the wrong place.

"Don't scare me like that." He says. "Better make sure your dads know it's molting time. I'll be back, okay?" He switches the jugs and then leaves.

You move the warm-soft so you can see the door again. You are alive. You are unhurt. You do not move. You hide.

Papa comes back. He has crunchy bread on a flat dish and a hot cup. He sits on the floor and eats. The others notice he has food and go over to beg because the big ones have tastier food. They bump his leg and nibble his pants. He pets them but does not share. Kaisey tries to drink from the hot cup, but papa shoos them away. You want pets. You want food. You do not move. You hide.

Then Papa gets to his feet. He still has some crunchy bread left. Weird. He lifts the piece of crunchy bread and puts it in the ham-ok. Ooh, it has pee-nut butter. Troll dad doesn't like when you get pee-nut butter, says it is “bad for you.” But it is _so good._

"Alright, be good, guys," he says. "Keep on keepin' on. See you after work."

He leaves and you nibble the crunchy bread. Kaisey climbs up and tries to take some bread, but you hiss. Papa gave it to you, and they did not stop him from finding you so they do not deserve bread. Yes, it was better that he did find you because you did not get hurt and actually gave you food but that’s not the point.  

Kaisey backs off, even though you are soft. They did bad, but are still a good sib.

The lights stay bright. The others play, bathe, eat the food that should have been yours (but you had pee-nut butter, so that's okay). Soon your new shell is hard. You leap out of the ham-ok and hop onto Devvan. You bite their ear. They screech, throw you off. Kaisey jumps on you, biting, pushing. You are a tangle of legs and bodies and teeth and horns. You are bigger than them now. You chirp, churr, growl, as you play. You love your sibs.

Noises come from above. That's okay. Your shell is hard and you are wrestling.

More sounds. Human dad opens the door.

"Hi guys!" The three of you run over, try to get him to wrestle. "Hehe, playtime, huh?" He gets down on his knees, uses his hands to push you around a little, roll you over, pin you. "Grr," he says, smiling.

Remember, he is soft. Don't make him bleed. You bite softly.  

Kaisey backs away.

"You okay?" human dad asks.

Kaisey shakes and climbs onto the wall. They face down and shake again.

"Oh! Are you-"

Kaisey takes a deep breath and their shell cracks. They slip down and then turn to run, hide up in the ham-ock.

"Woah," human dad says. He lifts a hand touches Kaisey's old shell. But he is gentle. As gentle to the old shell as papa was to you. Weird.

You and Devvan look at each other. If he will not do it you have to because you are good sibs, good friends. You and Devvan scoot up the wall and begin tearing the shell apart.

"Oh!" human dad staggers back.

You destroy the shell, scatter the pieces. No one will know Kaisey is soft now. But papa figured out you were, even though Devvan and Kaisey did a good job and human dad saw Kaisey run.

Human dad stretches up, looks in the Ham-ock. He makes a high happy sound. "Okay, I'm getting Karkat."

He leaves. There are thuds as he goes away, then more thuds as he comes back. He has troll dad by the hand, leads him in.

"Okay, John," troll dad says. "What is it?"

"So you'll never guess what happened this morning!"

Troll dad rolls his eyes. "What?"

Human dad starts reaching for the ham-ok. You hiss and Devvan screeches, trying to distract troll dad. Kaisey failed, but you will not fail. You will keep them safe.

Troll dad looks at the two of you and his eyes go wide. He grabs human dad's arm, pulls it away.

"What?" Human dad asks.

"Look, you're trying to show me Kaisey just molted, right?"

"Yeah! And they're all curled up in there. It's so cute!"

Troll dad groans. "John, we put up the ham-ock so they'd have somewhere to hide."

He frowns. "But I thought they know we won't hurt them."

"Normally yes. But molting's different. They know Kaisey is extra vul-ner-uh-ble and you're about fifty times their size.  They've only been here for a couple of weeks, and the less trusting a grub is the better chance it'll live."

Human dad looks sad. You climb his leg, nuzzle his shoulder. Maybe then he'll know troll dad is right. Dads are all good, you think. Maybe even more good than you thought, because no one's been hurt or eaten. But they are not sibs. Maybe later they can be, even if they are big.

You are not sure if that works. You will have to think about it.


	2. Sun and tab-lets

Usually when one of your dads comes down it means something good. Adrian is still not always sure, but they were always the untrusting one. You like attention and Kaisey likes to play. Still, it's been a long, long time, and even Adrian has learned they're okay. It probably helps that they bring food and clean the poop box every day. Everyone knows those are good things.

But the most best thing they bring is books. Kaisey and Adrian get more excited for movies and music, but you don't know why. Because with books you hear the words when one of your dads reads to you, but you also get to see the pictures so you know what they say, _and_ you get to see how sounds look. You've been excited about that since you saw the letter flash cards. Sounds _look like things._ How cool is that?!

You want to know all the sounds and all the words. Your sibs don't get it. Maybe you're smarter than them. When your dads bring new things downstairs you always look for letters and think really hard about the sounds that should go with them. You can't make all the noises your dads do, but you can think them, and then you can think the pictures of what those noises mean.

There's not too much you can do with it. You think maybe you understand more of what your dads say than your sibs do, but you can't be sure. And you've tried doing the thinking backwards, thinking of the noises in words and then putting letters down in the right order, but you can never find enough of the right blocks.

(Someday you really hope a third E shows up. Because then whenever human dad realizes he doesn't know what you should eat for dinner you can write out "meelwerms" and then you will get them, because otherwise troll dad likes keeping them to himself.)

Then one day troll dad comes down with a little black thing. It is the right shape to be a book, but books are colorful and instead of having pages it seems solid.

"Hey, guys," he says. "Brought you something."

He sits on the sofa and all three of you run over. Adrian perches on his shoulder but you and Kaisey cling to his arms. You want to see what the black thing is.

"Man, you guys are getting heavy," he says. "But here we go."

He presses a finger to the side of the black thing and it makes light. You jump back and fall onto the sofa. Oops.

"You okay?" troll dad asks.

You flip onto your feet, shake your head and climb back up to look. It's not just light, it's a picture! Like when they use the ceiling light box to put things on the wall! But this time it's a picture of your dads. They are smiling and have their arms around each other. They stand in a really, really big room full of other big ones. The room is big and white and there is a darker thing with letters on it behind them. You haven't seen the word before. Uh, muh… mussay…

He swipes his finger across the picture and it vanishes. You chitter angrily because you weren't done yet, but you stop when another picture appears. There's Kaisey and Adrian and… is that you? Huh, you look a lot like your sibs. Weird.

Troll dad touches the picture again and it changes. A bunch of little squares appear with little tiny lettering on or under them. You lean closer to get a good look.

"Okay, guys, so this is called a tab-let. Normally it's kind of important, but Jane just gave us a new one so it'll be okay to let you guys use it to- Where did-? Oh, here it is."

He touches a square with a w in it, and it gets bigger and bigger until it's the entire picture. Happy music stars playing and more letters appear. W-o-r-d-f-u-n. "Word fun?" Then the tab-let says it in a little voice. You were right! You wiggle excitedly.

"Yeah, cool, huh?" troll dad asks. He scritches between your horns. Oooh, yes. You purr.

"Okay, so I know you've been getting kind of sick of the flash cards we have for you, and this thing goes up to a sixth-class reading level. So it should keep you busy for a while. I've got it set with pictures for now so you guys can get used to it." He presses the button that says "Go!"

"Hat," the tab-let says out loud. It spells the word and then pictures pop up. There's a person, an apple, and a hat.

"So all you do is you touch the thing it says." He presses the hat.

"Good job!" The tab-let says. Then the pictures fade and it says, "Ball."

"Alright, now you try," Troll dad says.

You scurry a little further down his arm. You ignore the cup and the flower and put a front foot on the ball. The tab-let is smooth and hard, but also warm.

"Good job!" The tab-let says again. Troll dad gives you a head scratch as a reward. Yes, good.

Kaisey jumps down onto his lap, looking at the tab-let, waiting for the next picture.

"Sun."

Troll dad winces. "That… might be a little harder for you guys. I forgot to check if there was a grub mode."

There's a yellow ball with lines coming off of it, a horse, and a pillow. So if it's not the last two it needs to be the first one, right? Kaisey figures that out.

"Good job!" the tab-let says.

Kaisey looks back up at him in confusion. Yeah, what is that thing?

"Okay, uh," troll dad presses the side of the tab-let and sets it down. "How do I explain this… You know there's more stuff outside this room, right?"

Well, yeah. You can hear your dads talking sometimes. So they don't vanish, but they're not there. They have to be somewhere. Also, you can see more things through the door. You nod.

"The sun is one of those things. Um, let me just…" He picks up the tab-let again and presses the side. It makes light and you see the picture of your dads again. He presses on some pictures and there's words but they all go by too fast for you to read. "Okay, wye-fye back on, in-ter-net go."

He presses a part of the screen and suddenly there's a row of numbers and then a bunch of letters under them in three rows. He touches them really fast and then the same letters he touches show up a little higher. He hits another spot and the screen is filled with pictures. Some are of a red ball thing on a black background and others look kind of like the thing that showed up in the game.

"Yeah, okay, that's not what it looks like in real life. Let's try…" He hits more letters and then the pictures switch.

You see lots of pictures of big rooms. Bigger than any except for maybe some of the ones in movies. The floors are mostly green, but some are lumpy, like you're looking over a big green nest. The walls are blue, but most of them have splotches of whitish grayish. The one thing they all have in common is a really bright white spot pretty high on the wall. It's mostly round, but there are little narrow bits of light coming out of it. It's like a light, but why would they put it on the side of the wall? Lights go on top!

"Well, that's a little better. So this," he points "is the sun."

You look up at the ceiling. Yeah, it looks just like your lights. So why does it have a different name?

"Okay, it _looks_ kind of like a light bulb, and it lights up the outside world but it's different because… How do I explain this when you guys don't really know what the sky is? Uh… Well it's brighter, and it's really hot, so if you stay out or look at it too long it hurts.”

You look up at him confusedly.

He sighs. “Yeah, I know. But it’ll have to do for now. If I actually take you outside you’re not gonna like it. It’s big and open and bright and not good for grubs.”

You and the sibs whine.

“Hey, you’ll get to see it one day. Ee-ven-chu-ah-ly you guys are gonna pew-pate and then it’ll be less scary.”

You and the sibs keep whining. It’s always “later” or “someday.” You wanna go _now._

“Shhh,” he scritches you and Kaisey and rubs his cheek against Adrian’s.

You want to be mad, you should be mad. But it’s hard to stay mad at troll dad when he shushes you.  

“Oh yeah, John also downloaded a game where you catch things. With how much you guys like killing spiders and cen-tuh-peeds you should have fun with that.”

He picks the tab-let back up, presses it in a few more places. More pictures and words go by too fast for you to read. Then he places on the floor and sets you and your sibs around it. The tab-let has three words on it now: “Play,” “quit,” and “op-tee-ons.” Troll dad hits play.

Roundish things start wiggling across the tab-let. You want to pounce. Troll dad touches one and it pops. Oooh, that’s even better! Adrian leaps forward and you and Kaisey join them, catching all the things and making them pop.

“There you go,” Troll dad pets your carapace.

Yeah, dads always bring the best things.


End file.
